July 10, 2009

Offenders carry out over 380 hours community payback on Knowsley’s winning project.

Following the announcement of Knowsley’s Community Payback winning vote on 18th June, the winning project, Langton Road public open space is now complete.

The project was completed last week by offenders on Community Payback, who removed litter, debris and graffiti from the area. A total of 384.5 hours were completed by offenders and 1.46 tonnes of waste were removed from the area during the clean up project.

The project was supervised by staff from the Merseyside Probation Trust.

The scheme has been endorsed by members of the local community, Knowsley Borough Council, Merseyside Probation Trust, and Merseyside Police.

Langton Road open space, part of Tower Hill open space is a central hub in the area, providing an access route for the immediate community to travel to shops, public transport, community facilities and schools. The area was identified by members of the public as an area which would benefit from community payback work. It is envisaged that each of the nominated projects will be completed by offenders within the next 18 months.

Steve Agger, Service Director for Crime and Disorder, Knowsley Council said:

“This campaign has been a tremendous opportunity for the people of Knowsley to have their say in how offenders can give something back to their communities; the community can now see the benefit to them of this type of sentence. We are delighted to be working with the Probation Service, and this project is just one of many that can provide a suitable punishment for offenders, whilst improving the area for local residents.”

A total of 18,000 people voted for the Community Payback they would like to see offenders in 54 areas across the country carry out first from a list of five projects per area. The three week vote through the direct.gov website was part of the “Justice Seen, Justice Done” campaign to raise awareness of Community Payback as a tough punishment, following the launch of branded high visibility orange jackets that offenders undertaking such projects must now wear.

The roll-out of visible Community Payback across England and Wales built on a recommendation from the Government’s Crime and Justice Adviser Louise Casey’s review, 'Engaging Communities in Fighting Crime', published a year ago today outlining the importance of justice being visible. It seeks to improve public confidence in Community Payback as a punishment so that people will be more likely to come forward to report crime, give evidence in court and support their neighbours to do the same.